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Saturday, 31 March 2018

This has been a fun series. This week you will meet the last three from the growing roster of published authors of Class Act Books.If you've missed the list, please check out the following links back to the start of this collection.The most recent March 17thPrevious March 3rdThe beginning January 13th

**Class Act Books is currently open for manuscript submissions and are looking for finished and proofed novels or series in the genres of western, romance, and mystery/suspense, to be published in e-book and paperback. More information on manuscript submission can be found on their website at: http://www.classactbooks.com/submissions

Toni
V. Sweeney

About the Author:

Toni V. Sweeney has lived 30 years in the South, a
score in the Middle West, and a decade on the Pacific Coast and now she’s
trying for her second 30 on the Great Plains. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in
Fine Art and a diploma in Graphic Art and also produces book videos. Since the
publication of her first novel in 1989, Toni divides her time between writing
SF/Fantasy under her own name and romances under her pseudonym Icy Snow
Blackstone. Her novels have garnered awards from The National Writers Association,
Preditors & Editors, The Maryland Writers Association, and The Paranormal
Romance Guild. In March, 2013, she became publicity manager for Class Act
Books. She is also on the review staff of the New York Journal of Books and the
Paranormal Romance Guild.Recently she
was named a professional reader by netgalley.com.

Allan McAllister is a Paxist, a
believer in peace, forced by the United Terran Federation into military service
to punish his treasonous kinsman. N’Sagar sh’en Singh is the daughter of a
Felidan pride chief, one of the enemy, but there’s no hatred in her heart for
the lone Terran marooned on her planet.

Thrown together, then torn from
each other by the aftermath of a war neither wanted, their love will be a tragedy and a triumph as a man sworn to walk the road
of Peace is made to follow the dictates of War and suffer its consequences.

Excerpt for The Story of a Peace-Loving Man:

He was in the line with all the others, dressed in his
Federation-issue fatigues, duffel bag resting at his left ankle. The Sarge was
going down the line, comparing names on the screen of his hand unit with the
little holographic ID tags hanging around each recruit’s neck.

“Then keep quiet,
recruit!” He turned to the others. “Gentleman... ” Even that word was deliver
with a modicum of irony Allan would learn was the Sarge’s normal speaking
voice. Odd how Southern accents fitted themselves so well to that mode of
delivery. “We have here the relative of a very famous personage, or infamous, I
should say. Mr. McAllister is the nephew of… Why don’t you tell us, Mr.
McAllister?”When Allan didn’t answer,
he leaned forward and went on in a stage whisper, “You may speak now, Mr.
McAllister.”

“Egan Rand.”
Allan supplied the name very quietly.

“What?” The DI
cupped one hand to his ear, “What was that? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Egad Rand!”
Allan answered, louder.

“Egan Rand.
That’s right. The traitor who thinks we should love the Felidans instead of
killing them. Who wants the Federation to stop the war and welcome those
murderous aliens with open arms.”

“I don’t think
that’s— ”

“I don’t care
what you think, McAllister! Isn’t your uncle a fugitive from Federation justice
for preaching sedition by urging our young men not to enlist?”

“Yes, sir, he’s a
fugitive, but that’s not exactly—”

“Well, then?”

“If I could
explain, sir.”

“Oh, by all
means, please. Explain.”

“No one knows why the Felidans attacked Ferris
Alpha.My uncle thinks we should find
out the reason. Maybe the Felidans feel they were justified. H-he thinks if we
know why they did it, maybe it can be resolved without a war…”

“Well, now, that
sounds reasonable enough, doesn’t it?” That slow, deep accent fairly dripped
sarcasm. “Love thy neighbor. Now, I
know that’s what Christos taught, and it’s what each of you dewey-eyed
innocents heard when your Mamas took you to church every Sunday, but in that
Bible each of you were issued along with your LX-15, it also says, an eye
for an eye and do unto others—”

Spittle flew as the Sarge ranted. Allan blinked to keep
from being struck in the eye by a globule. He forced himself not to flinch,
didn’t dare dodge or reach up to wipe his face, just stood there, feeling the
bit of wet trickle down his cheek.

“Quite frankly, I think that’s what we ought to do. We
ought to take a couple of dirty laser bombs and drop ’em on Felida and wipe out
all of those murderous bastards…” He broke off to survey the young faces a
moment before continuing, his tone now mild in shocking contrast to his
previous angry one. “But use of those type of weapons was banned at the Jovian
Covention of 2120, so we’re going to do the next best thing. We’re going to use
our gunboats to kill as many of ’em as possible. As for you…” He swung back to
Allan. “As a little reminder to keep your mouth shut and not spread any of your
uncle’s crap, drop and give me fifty!”

“Fifty what,
sir?” Allan didn’t move.

“Are you
smart-assing me, McAllister?”

“N-no sir. Fifty Credits? I-I don’t have that much cash—”

“Fifty push-ups you idiot! Now!”

While the rest of
the company marched off to the barracks, Allan flung himself to the ground and
performed the requested callisthenics, calmly counted out by the corporal.

A
writer of French Huguenot extraction, one of Tony-Paul de Vissage's
first movie memories is of being six years old, viewing the old Universal
horror flick, Dracula's Daughter on television, and being scared
sleepless—and he’s now paying back his very permissive parents by writing about
the Undead.

Shadow
Lord,
first novel in the Second Species
series, was named one of the top ten horror novels of 2013 by Preditors &
Editos Readers Choice Poll for that year.

“Do you want to go?” Marek came closer, his
feet making no sound on the thick carpet. When she looked up to find him
standing directly behind her, she appeared startled.

“Not
really.” The gaze she turned on him was unhappy. “I'll probably get a beating
for coming here.” She tried to look unconcerned. “Oh, well, it won’t be the
first time.”

“What’s your
name?” He touched her shoulders. Unconsciously, she leaned against him.

“Lily.
Lily-Magda.”

“Don’t go,
Lily-Magda.” He whispered the words into her ear, one arm going around her
waist. “Stay here. With me.”

“Madame’ll
never let me stay, my lord, not even to be a servant to a ghidaj.”

“I don’t
want you as a servant.” Recklessly, startling himself with the words, he went
on, “I believe I love you, girl. Stay with me, my crimson lily.”

To his
surprise she burst into tears. Marek was dismayed. Oracle, damn it. Am I to
be accursed this night with crying women?

“Oh, master,
since the moment I saw you standing in the gallery…I didn’t know who you were
and when I found out…How could the ghidaj want someone like me? You did
and now…” She put her hands to her face and began to sob louder.

“Does that
mean yes?” Marek pulled her hands away.

She gave him
a watery smile and nodded. Throwing his arms around her, he lifted her off the
floor, swinging her in a tight circle. He kissed her again. Holding her body
against his chest, he ran to the window, climbing upon the window seat.

“What are you
doing?” she whispered.

With one
hand, he pushed the shutters open and stepped onto the sill. There was a soft
rustle as his wings unfurled. Marek flung himself from the window, Lily
clutched in his arms.

She
struggled slightly, then her squeal was bitten off as she realized they weren’t
falling to their deaths, but instead rising above the trees. Marek circled the
courtyard, then climbed higher, the sweep of his wings pushing the air past
them in loud gusts.

“Look,
Lily.” He gestured, and she glanced at the scene far below them…the castel
and the forest around it, and further on, the rough slopes of the mountains and
the far-off peaks.

On the
parapet of the castel they could see soldati walking the walls.
One looked up, pointing, calling to another, and they raised their hands
saluting, not the least surprised by seeing their ghidaj flying with a female in his arms.

Marek
swooped lower, spinning in the air, acknowledging their homage as Lily laughed
with delight.

“Oh, master,
it’s so beautiful!”

“This is all
Strigoi land, Lily. It’s mine, and it’ll be yours too, if you’ll stay with me.”

Circling
above the tallest pine, he rose higher until they touched the first wisp of
cloud hovering above the mountain peak, the shadows of the cliffs covering and
hiding them.

“It’ll be
summer soon,” he said. “When the nights are warmer, we’ll fly over the river
and see our reflections in the water. It’s so clear you can see to the bottom
when the moon’s full. The travertine in the currents reflects it like a mirror.
Would you like that? Will you stay?”

“Oh, yes.”
Her arms tightened around his neck.

Before them
loomed the highest tower of the castle, its stones silvered in the moonlight.
His wings bore them to the spire where the Strigoi banner, a sword cleaving the
sun, waved in the night air. Around the emblem in blood-red script was
embroidered the clan motto, In Fidelitas, Est Potentia…In Loyalty, There
is Power.

Circling the tower, he kissed her with a quickening hunger,
eagerly, desperately, even

as he tried to
be restrained, trailing small bites across her throat. His wings caused the
banner to flap wildly as if in a sudden storm, the words seeming to blink at
them…

…Fidelitas… Potentia….Loyalty…Power…

Robb T.
White

Author’s Bio:

Under the names Terry White,
Robert White, and Robb T. White, Robert White has published dozens of crime,
noir, and hardboiled short stories, and three hardboiled private-eye
novels. A lifelong reader of crime fiction, he published his first story
in Gary Lovisi's Hardboiled magazine.
Since then, he has published several dozen crime stories, and a collection of
mainstream stories in 2013. An ebook crime novel, "Special
Collections," won the New Rivers Electronic Book Competition in
2014.

The
female is definitely deadlier than the male.Short stories about ladies who can hold their own.

Excerpt
for Dangerous Women:

Be careful what you wish for, Regina.

Her mother’s
words. Sometimes she could hear her mother’s voice in the house.

The Vindicator piece on Bodycomb’s death was
two paragraphs.

He was found
floating in Lake Milton, a popular summer resort area for fisherman seventeen
miles east of Austintown just off the Interstate 80 overpass. Shot by a
small-caliber weapon in the back of the head. The important information was in
the second paragraph: Bodycomb, it noted, was running a dog-fighting network
among three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia for a loose-knit West
Virginia crime family connected to the Pittsburgh LaRizzo family.

Damn you, Leo.

She was
blowing through caution lights, ignoring the honking of cars, as she beelined
for the office on Market.

Like a
script from a cheap thriller, he was there, wearing the same clothes and
unshaven, big jowls dark with stubble, pong of body odor in the overheated
single room.

“You
promised me full disclosure, total honesty,” she said.

She threw
the paper across his desk.

“Here it is
in case you missed it.”

Be calm, Regina, she told herself. She wasn’t going to lose
her temper and a new job in that order.

“I did and I
meant it, Baby,” Leo said.

He glanced
at the paper sideways and pushed it back to her. He’d obviously read it.

“You asked
me—no, you demanded I call somebody.
I did,” he said.

He disgusted
her with those wagging jowls and big stomach. She noticed his belt was undone
and a patch of curly belly hair exposed.

Probably jerking off in here, the freak.

“I suppose
you’ll tell me when the mood strikes.”

“I meant the
second case—your next case,” Leo
said. “Full disclosure, just like you want.”

Her
indignation petered out at the prospect. “So tell me about it,” she said.

Bodycomb was
moving in on Donnie Bracca’s territory with his dog-fighting, Leo said.

“He can kill
all the dogs he wants in West Virginia,” Leo said. “But Donnie B. controls
gambling around here.”

“Donnie
Bracca was your real client all the time,” Baby said.

“It’s like
this, kid. They don’t blow each other up in cars no more. Gentlemen’s
agreements, all nice and polite. But rules have to be followed. Bodycomb went
rogue.”

She bit back
a retort: You mean, like your own father?

Leo went on,
waxing large, a hopeless Mafioso lover, although a real mafia man, a made man,
could see Leo couldn’t be trusted. But even the Aryan Brotherhood used outside
associates to get things done. Leo could be useful if you couldn’t buy a cop or
scare off an investigative reporter snooping in shady politics or business
deals.

She didn’t
feel bad about Bodycomb’s death. After all, she'd wanted to kill the guy
herself.

“Damn it,
Leo,” she said. “You should have told me this in the beginning.”Baby moved in
the direction Bodycomb’s vehicle had taken. After A couple of hundred yards
through meadow grass up to her knees, she stopped and listened. Moving on, she
dodged stunted bushes that popped up out of nowhere to snag her clothing. The
foliage grew less dense. She found the parallel ruts of the Road Runner’s
tracks and kept moving, straining her eyes to see light ahead. If Bodycomb was
hiding assets from his soon-to-be ex-wife, he was taking a lot of trouble over
it.

After five
minutes of faster walking in the grooves, she heard barking coming from the
right. She saw the first glimmer of light in the distance. The terrain was
sparse but small slopes refracted the light source so it appeared and
disappeared with every rise of the ground. A single dog barking became two,
then three and finally a pack. Beneath their howls, men’s voices.

When she got
close enough to make out words, she lay flat on her belly and put the
binoculars on a cluster of men beside a ramshackle barn surrounded by cages of
dogs in the beds of trucks beside a squared string of light bulbs a dozen feet
from the ground. It looked like a crude boxing ring for backyard brawlers.

Its purpose
became clear in the next few minutes. It was a dog-fighting pit.

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Somewhere in New Brunswick. Photo by France Duguay.

Allan Hudson

About Me

I started writing later in life, inspired by one of my favorite authors, Bryce Courtenay, who began his writing career in his mid-fifties. It has been one of my most rewarding pastimes. I’ve been an avid reader all my life. It started with Dick & Jane – a primary reader my mother brought home from her work – she was a school teacher and taught me to read at an early age.

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5 Star review for Shattered Figurine

The opening chapter presents the detective, Jo Naylor, with a very important question. One she didn’t really want to answer but knows she must.

The next chapter, one year later, hits you square in the face with full on complicated and violent action as we discover what this story is all about.

Shattered Figurines is a surprisingly unusual detective story in that it doesn’t follow the usual plotline for this genre and the characters aren’t run of the mill either. The author has captured a very real element in both the story and the characters and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

I love a good detective mystery story and Shattered Figurines is one of the best I have read this year. I shall be first in the queue when the author writes another one in this series.

Shattered Figurine - a novella - Available Now!

Shattered Figurine. She sold it at a yard sale four years ago, when she was thirty-seven, and she remembers who bought it. She hadn’t given it a thought since then. In her mind, there had been no reason to. The message this morning changed that. She can’t ignore the possibility, no matter how horrific it seems. She prays silently that she be proven wrong" Click on the photo to read a brief excerpt. Thank you for your support.

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Review of Wall of War

Dark Side of a Promise

Drake Alexander Adventure - Book 1. I'm pleased to announce the first two novels in the Drake Alexander Adventures are now available as an eBook at the following outlets. Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Baker & Taylor, Playster, Book2read, Bibliotheca, Overdrive, Tolino, Scribd, 24 Symbols & Amazon. Soon to be available at other booksellers.

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Wall of War and Dark Side of a Promise is available at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Cover to Cover in Riverview, Cocagne Variety in Cocagne and from the author.

The Douglas Kyle Memorial Award for Fiction

My story - The Ship Breakers - received Honorable Mention in the Douglas Kyle Memorial awards for New Brunswick Writers Federation's short story category. Published in 2018 in A Box of Memories, a collection of delightful and entertaining short stories.